What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Pass the popcorn. this is getting interesting.
From Time “Attorney General Eric Holder must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate IRS targeting of conservative groups or expect to face impeachment proceedings, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on the chamber floor Thursday.
“When an Attorney General mocks the rule of law, when an Attorney General corrupts the Department of Justice by conducting a nakedly partisan investigation to cover up political wrongdoing that conduct by any reasonable measure constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors,” said Cruz. “Attorney General Eric Holder has the opportunity to do the right thing. He could appoint a special prosecutor with meaningful independence who is not a major Obama donor.”
The donor Cruz is referring to is Justice Department prosecutor Barbara Bosserman, who has given $6,750 to the Democratic Party and President Obama over the past ten years, according to the Washington Post. Bosserman has been chosen to lead the Justice Department probe into the IRS.
Cruz and other conservatives are dismayed that the Justice Department has yet to indict anyone 13 months after the IRS admitted that it targeted nonprofit political advocacy groups with the terms “tea party” or “patriot” in their names from 2010 to 2012.”
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2. A decision is expected today in the Hobby Lobby case against the contraceptive mandate. But it will it really solve anything either way?
From NationalJournal “The justices are set to rule any day now in a challenge to the birth-control mandate, and any decision against the policy would have ripple effects far beyond the two companies that filed this lawsuit. Just how far, however, depends on how broadly the Court rules—and it has plenty of options.
No matter what happens, the Court won’t strike down the entire mandate. The two companies that brought their challenge to the Supreme Court—Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties—haven’t asked the justices to ax the entire policy.
The most sweeping option is a broad First Amendment proclamation that all corporations have a fundamental right to exercise religion, in this case by refusing to cover birth control in their employees’ health care plans. This outcome would be almost a sequel to the Citizens United case on campaign finance laws and free speech. It would probably open the door for any company to challenge a slew of state or federal regulations, and would allow any corporation to avoid the contraception mandate—potentially affecting millions of women.
But a sweeping First Amendment ruling might not be the most likely option, based on the questions Justice Anthony Kennedy asked during oral arguments and Chief Justice John Roberts’s general preference for narrower decisions. The Court could easily go smaller if it sides with Hobby Lobby.”
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3. In other ObamaCare news….
From TheLATimes “rustration and legal challenges over the network of doctors and hospitals for Obamacare patients have marred an otherwise successful rollout of the federal healthcare law in California.
Limiting the number of medical providers was part of an effort by insurers to hold down premiums. But confusion over the new plans has led to unforeseen medical bills for some patients and prompted a state investigation.
More complaints are surfacing as patients start to use their new coverage bought through Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange.
“I thought I had done everything right, and it’s been awful,” said Jean Buchanan, 56. The Fullerton resident found herself stuck with an $8,000 bill for cancer treatment after receiving conflicting information on whether it was covered. “How am I going to come up with that much money?”
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4. So as I suspected, it was all for show. That’s why he walked around free and giving interviews to the press for 2 years after the attack. The trial should be a real dog and pony show.
From FoxNews “Despite President Obama’s promise to stay focused on hunting down those responsible for the 2012 Benghazi attack — and despite a recent arrest touted as a major takedown — sources say little has been done to nab the other suspects.
According to multiple sources on the ground, including some with direct knowledge of the operations to identify and hunt the Benghazi suspects, intelligence that could have been acted upon at times has been ignored or put on hold. Further, they say, the recent capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala — now on a ship bound for the U.S., expected to arrive this weekend — was an easy one. “He was low-hanging fruit,” one source told Fox News. “We could have picked him up months and months ago and there was no change, or urgency to do this now.”
“According to sources, the United States has a “target list” that initially contained about 10 suspects identified within days of the attack and eventually grew to more than 20 as American Special Forces conducted surveillance in and around Benghazi.
The four groups on the “target list” include Ansar al-Sharia, with the top target being the “Emir of Ansar al Sharia,” Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu. He was a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years and at the time was classified by analysts at the prison as “a probable member of Al Qaeda.” Despite this significant threat to American security and allies, bin Qumu was released as part of an amnesty for militants in 2008. Sources told Fox News that intelligence has shown his involvement in the attacks, and actionable intelligence has for some reason been ignored. “
The suspect arrested was at the very bottom of the list.
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5. Interesting. It seems that despite claims by Democrats, RINO’s, and the Chamber of Commerce, we have all the workers we need. And amnesty is hurting American’s chances of getting jobs.
From NationalReview “According to a major new report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), net employment growth in the United States since 2000 has gone entirely to immigrants, legal and illegal. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CIS scholars Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler found that there were 127,000 fewer working-age natives holding a job in the first quarter of 2014 than in 2000, while the number of immigrants with a job was 5.7 million above the 2000 level.”
“Other significant findings include: Because the native-born population grew significantly, but the number working actually fell, there were 17 million more working-age natives not working in the first quarter of 2014 than in 2000.
The share of natives working or looking for work, referred to as labor force participation, shows the same decline as the employment rate. In fact, labor force participation has continued to decline for working-age natives even after the jobs recovery began in 2010.
Immigrants have made gains across the labor market, including lower-skilled jobs such as maintenance, construction, and food service; middle-skilled jobs like office support and health care support; and higher-skilled jobs, including management, computers, and health care practitioners.
The supply of potential workers is enormous: 8.7 million native college graduates are not working, as are 17 million with some college, and 25.3 million with no more than a high school education.”
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Wandering Views 
5 is interesting. We have a huge number of a Americans who don’t want to work. A record 11 million are on disability, and a huge percentage of those are faking. With Foodstamps and long term unemployment, Obama has created a giant group of Democrats who are not working and are not interested in working. My mother-in-law works at Walmart. They always need workers. It is hard to find good ones. I oppose increased immigration because if we bring hard working folks in from Mexico, US policies will turn many of them into bums within 20 years, and that is not considering what US culture and public schools will turn their children into.
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It is cheaper for some people to collect unemployment than to go to work.
Holder will appoint Lois Lerner to investigate the IRS.
#2. Obama doesn’t care what the Supreme Court says.
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Hobby Lobby won their case. 🙂
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Bet there will be just a bit of pressure on Ginsburg to step down from the court before Obama leaves office so he can appoint a more ‘reliable’ replacement.
Legacy.
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George Washington: I think I will now use my mulligan.
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“Once to every man and nation…”
Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/n/oncetoev.htm
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2. Should the courts decide once and for all or should changes be made incremental?? the latter is the traditional Anglo-Saxon approach. However,corporate challenges based on religion (or any other standard) continue to point out the error in an employer based health care/insurance model. The “cure” for what will become a patchwork of challenges and decisions is single-payer or at the very least a public option.
Ironically, the US employer based model is very similar to the Communist Poland era of workplace health insurance. As a Canadian working in Poland in the early 90s I was rather amused that the Communist era system resembled the US system more than the Canadian single payer.
Interestingly, Hobby Lobby had no problem investing their pension funds in pharmaceutical companies which made contraception but suddenly found religion when they were expected to purchase the products and not just reap the profits.
My own preference has always been a single payer system and one of the reasons is to avoid mandating particular compensation beyond min. wage laws. Corporations and private employers should decide on compensation not gov’t. Health care is not compensation but rather a necessity of a modern industrial state —- along with proper sanitation, water treatment, etc, health care is needed to maintain order and economic stability.
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I’ve always said just simply giving the poor money as opposed to food stamps, etc is far more efficient and economically beneficial. And it seems I”m not the only one with that opinion.
And some thoughts on economic inequality;
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/inequality-is-not-inevitable/?_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=OP_IIN_20140630&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=2&&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Opinion&action=keypress®ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=Blogs
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HRW, all at once. No business should be told to provide any benefit that it doesn’t want to.
Put it all in the contract. If you like the contract, take it. If not, go somewhere else.
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Chas — you’re right. The employer (or his/her agent) and the employee (or his/her agent) should reach their own agreements. However, since the advent of the welfare state I do think the state should set a minimum wage at a level in which a FT worker would not require gov’t assistance. Without a minimum wage, companies would be free to set wages low and then simply tell their employees to make up the difference with gov’t assistance ( basically what Walmart does now) Set the minimum wage at a level so that a FT job is enough and the state would not have to step in.
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An interesting facet of the Supreme Court decision is its refusal to consider if the belief is factually correct.Now I can understand religious objections to abortion services but one should have to prove contraception is abortion before claiming they are exempt from birth control mandates because it goes against their religious beliefs against abortion.
I wonder if this precedent will allow Jehovah’s Witness employers to be exempt from blood transfusion costs and Scientology employers avoid any mandate associated with mental health.
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A person should not be forced by the government to support any program to which he objects.
See my 3:54. Let the JW’s pay for their own blood transfusions. Every procedure under consideration has an affordable alternative.
Sandra Fluke made a campaign on having to spend her living on contraceptives. There was a time when a woman made the man pay for them. But women liberated themselves from that.
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Russell Moore: “The ruling isn’t just a win for evangelicals, like the Southern Baptist Green family (who own Hobby Lobby). It’s a win for everyone. Here’s why. A government that can pave over the consciences of the Greens can steamroll over any dissent anywhere. Whether you agree or disagree with us about abortion, every American should want to see a government that is not powerful enough to set itself up as a god over the conscience.”
Yep. We Americans are a stubborn, dissenting bunch at heart. 🙂
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“Ill mannered” about it sometimes, too. 🙂
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HRW, please don’t repeat the lie that Hobby Lobby did not want to provide any contraception to their employees. They only objected to 4 out of the 20 that Obamacare demanded. They did not want to provide the one’s they believed destroyed a fertilized egg, which their religious beliefs considered a human life. ,
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Thanks kBells, an important distinction.
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And it really is an awesome movie if you’ve never seen it … :
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